April 2010
In partnership with
VOLCANO THEATRE &
WELSH NATIONAL OPERA
Directed by
PAUL DAVIES
Music by
PETER SWAFFER REYNOLDS
Joining forces with Volcano Theatre and Welsh National Opera, we take over the evocative domed reading room of Swansea’s old library. Follow a choir of librarians through the abandoned book stacks on a journey to whisper about for a very long time.
‘What are those noises that people make when they are told to be quiet?’
Volcano is an internationally renowned touring company based in Swansea which has produced over 25 shows using a powerful physical style coupled with visual impact and innovative use of text. In this production the company has been partnered by Welsh National Opera to create a hugely evocative, riotous and moving paean to the linguistic tradition in Wales.
The music will be written by Peter Swaffer Reynolds, a multi-instrumental composer who has worked with circus, silent movies, theatre, dance and site-specific events for over 20 years. He spent formative years in Europe and Scandinavia learning from some of the most excellent musicians of improvisation and composition.
7 – 25 April
Wednesday 7pm
Thursday – Saturday 7pm & 8:30pm
Sunday, 3pm & 4:30pm
Tickets: £10/£7 Concessions
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‘The Old Library is a fantastic space. The reading room is so full of energy and ghosts of past library visitors. When you are walking along that fantastic walkway that runs right round the edge of the reading room, you can almost feel the quiet energy of people reading books and the librarians looking disapprovingly across the room at people making noises. It is all there.
The symmetry of that beautiful round space is a focal point. For a show, it will focus that performance beautifully. Everybody will have a different journey through the piece.
Going into the vaults underneath is just incredible. The idea of the installation and finding little private, personal moments and finding things in corners that may have a soundtrack will be a really exciting experience for an audience. Then stepping into the main library space and seeing what unfolds.’
A journey though the now abandoned reading rooms of Swansea’s Old Library; which was home to The Dylan Thomas Collection that was established in the 1950s and comprised over 3000 books and articles written about or by Dylan Thomas.
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